Go to previous post:
You know how those people are

Go to Electrolite's front page.

Go to next post:
Not really all that complicated

Our Admirable Sponsors

August 18, 2002

Your name here I keep hearing how cheap it would be to save the two and a half million children worldwide who die every year from dehydration caused by diarrhea from waterborne illnesses. Figures like “eighty cents a year per American.”

Fritz Schranck quotes some interesting (and serious) remarks by P.J. O’Rourke on the subject, and makes a couple of practical suggestions.

The world has a lot of problems, but this one could be solved for the kind of money corporate America accidentally leaves in the couch cushions. Even in a recession. Coke and Pepsi, notably, could reap a tremendous marketing boon from helping manufacture and distribute the simple glucose-and-salt solutions required.

This is all so simple, obvious, and cheap that it barely matters if half the money gets skimmed off on the way. To happen, all it needs is for someone to decide that this is what they’re going to do with their life. [06:19 PM]

Welcome to Electrolite's comments section.
Hard-Hitting Moderator: Teresa Nielsen Hayden.

Comments on Your name here:

Tim Kyger ::: (view all by) ::: August 18, 2002, 07:56 PM:

This is *so* true and right.

If I had the bucks, I'd do it.

Heck, this is a rounding error around the Bill Gates household.

What exactly *is* the course list to become a dissapated rich man, by the way? I was never able to find them listed in any of the college catalogs I ever looked at...

Stephanie ::: (view all by) ::: August 19, 2002, 09:48 AM:

I believe the two time-honored methods are Inheriting Wealth and Marrying Money.

Failing that, you could try politics...

Scott Janssens ::: (view all by) ::: August 19, 2002, 04:31 PM:

www.gatesfoundation.org, search for diarrhea

Tony Hursh ::: (view all by) ::: August 19, 2002, 08:50 PM:

Good point, Scott. I'm no fan of Bill's software or business practices, but he has, in fact, given a shitpot of money to charity.

The Gates Foundation is endowed to the tune of $24 billion. That's Real Money even for Gates. Certainly it isn't a "rounding error".

Bill Gates is a predatory businessman who's out to win on his chosen playing field at all costs. That doesn't mean that he has no social conscience outside of business, and it doesn't make him "dissipated".